1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a handwritten character input device for recognizing a handwritten character, and setting a character font to correspond to the recognized character.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a handwritten character input device for recognizing handwritten characters, and inputting the recognized characters has been widely used for example in a word processor to enable the inputting of characters with a stylus pen.
The major construction of the conventional handwritten character input device is described as referring to FIG. 1. The handwritten character input device in FIG. 1 comprises a handwritten character input unit 121 for inputting a character to a word processor with a pen, a handwritten character recognition unit 122 for recognizing the handwritten character, a character code generation unit 123 for generating a character code for the character recognized by the handwritten character recognition unit 122, and a character input unit 124 for inputting the character of the character code generated by the character code generation unit 123 to the word processor according to a preset font.
The operation of the conventional handwritten character input device thus constructed is described now.
(1) To input a character to a word processor, the user handwrites a character to the handwritten character input unit 121 with a pen. PA1 (2) The handwritten character code recognition unit 122 recognizes the handwritten character. PA1 (3) The character code generation unit 123 generates a character code for the character recognized by the handwritten character code recognition unit 122. PA1 (4) The character input unit 124 inputs the character of the character code generated by the character code generation unit 123. PA1 (1) As shown in FIG. 2A, the operator handwrites a character within the input frame 132 of the sub-window 131 with a pen. PA1 (2) In turn, the handwritten character code recognition unit 122 recognizes "B", "M", and "S". PA1 (3) The character code generation unit 123 generates character codes "code x", "code y", and "code z" for the recognized characters "B", "M", and "S" respectively, and displays each of them within the input frame, as shown in FIG. 2B. PA1 (4) When the determination button 133 is pressed to determine the characters which have been inputted to the sub-window 131, the character input unit 124 inputs the character of each character code generated by the character code generation unit 123 according to a preset font onto the main-window, as shown in FIG. 2C.
An example of the character inputting operation described hereinabove is described as referring to FIG. 2. FIG. 2 shows an exemplary process of inputting a character to a word processor with the conventional handwritten character input device.
As shown in FIG. 2C, a text to be inputted to the word processor is edited on a main window 130, and a character is handwritten on a sub-window 131 which is constructed with a part of the main window 130. An input frame 132 to be written a character with a pen is formed on the sub-window 131. When a determination button is pressed, the character displayed on the sub-window 131 is determined, and the determined character is inputted onto the main-window 130, after a character cursor 134.
The operation will be described in order.
As mentioned hereinabove, the conventional handwritten character input device applies a single size to every character, that is, it inputs the same font of characters regardless of the character size written by the operator. For this reason, to change the character size, designation of the character whose character size is to be changed and selection of a desired character font to be applied to the designated character must be conducted with an edition screen of the word processor. This reduces the favorable feature of the handwritten character input device which is capable of inputting character data easily as if the character were written on a paper.